Pictures in a picture gallery
by FRC Coazze
Summary: Albus Dumbledore meditates. The Headmaster's brilliant and queer mind travels far away to a wide and fantastic art gallery. There are many paintings and many visitors... but what is that little, curious, black picture over there in the corner?


_This was a short story that came out of nowhere, as usual. I didn't have the time to translate it earlier, so here it is now. _

_I do not own Harry Potter and I am not a native English speaker._

_I sincerely hope you enjoy it._

* * *

**Pictures in a picture gallery**

I never thought of myself as a great man.

Oh, people can say many things. And they do. The greatest magician in the world. The wiser. The guide. Is this what I am? Maybe. Perhaps the more I think about it, the more, inside me, I understand the profound, true meaning of those words: they are the critiques of a world of critics who look at my mask and see greatness, power and strength. I'm a picture in a picture gallery, hung up on a wall like so many others. Yes, there are many here, next to me, each one with its own frame, its own label pasted by zealous critics. There are people who look and smile, people whose eyes shine with wonder. There are people who watch and turn up their noses, people in whose eyes I see nothing but envy, whose accuser fingers are raised only to allow their insignificance to hide behind them.

There is all the strangeness and diversity of the world in this long gallery. I see small and insignificant paintings with huge gilt frames and so many people crowding around them. I see so many beautiful pictures, with infinite colours and infinite shades, doorways towards a better world gathering dust in the dark. And I see them shaking off the cobwebs and with hard work and dedication wax their small frames, though few will ever notice them.

I see the guides, with those grey uniforms that make them look like big rats, wander among the pictures guiding big or small groups of people, sticking new labels and praising what they want to praise, insulting or ignoring everything else. So few people watch in loneliness. Evaluating everything according to their won opinion, looking at the pictures instead of frames. Instead of labels.

I see paintings bend over to remove those same labels and every time someone come to paste them up again.

What's written on my label?

The greatest magician in the world? The greatest liar? The nice headmaster? The puppeteer?

Is there my name at least?

I think not. _Albus Dumbledore_. The painter forgot to write it. And it's funny, since I myself am the painter.

But these visitors do not need to know my name. They're interested in titles, adjectives, nouns. They're interested in the object, the picture, not the person.

And I look at this crowd who surrounds me and I feel sorrow and loathing. Sorrow for their identical outfits, for their eyes stolen. Faces of porcelain in which the rat-guides insert the eyes they want. For this they disgust me. Because they renounced to their own identity to delight in someone else's. Naive and victims. I feel sorry, for they will never have a painting here, in this great picture gallery. And I can see the envy on their white faces.

Fools! They do not understand. They do not understand the harm they do to themselves and to us, poor paintings hung on a wall for their fun!

I look at the pictures around me and I understand that they all have their own identity. For this reason they are there. Because they stood out. In one way or another. For better or for worse. They raised above the grey crowd and won their place on these walls. But at what price? Their identity, like mine, is under those labels. Because if you're above the crowd, you're vulnerable. If you are not a doll, then the dolls will give you a name. And it won't be yours. It will be what they want. It will be many names. And your name, like mine, will never appear on your label. The place there is only for adjectives and nouns.

And I, like so many other crazy men, I have accepted them and I hid behind them. It is what I wanted: to be the greatest magician in the world. That was what I asked to the grey crowd. I coloured my picture and carved my frame to be what they were looking for. I hid myself and my name and my identity under layers of colour. I'm a fake. A beautiful and deep and perfect fake. Because only a fake would attract all those gazes. The genuine masterpieces are left to cobwebs. And yet, very few of them still endure on these walls.

Yet, in all this huge art gallery, there is a curious picture. Down there, in the corner. It does not attract attention, it hides. It didn't ask to be there. It repels, it scares.

It is a small black picture in a wooden frame. No, it does not call the eye. It is scary like a night without moon and stars. No one stop in front of it. Everyone looks at it with contempt. Yet I'm attracted by that painting.

So many were the hands that created the black crust on it. Many hands. Including its owns. So many have thrown mud on it. And it painted with black what of the painting was left free, because if the picture is already all black, then what's the point in keeping blemish it?

Oh, it looks like no more than a miserable, sad, disgusting painting... but I know for a fact that that small, curious picture down there is a hundred times more authentic than mine. It is an original masterpiece waiting for someone, driven by who knows what spurt of humanity, to notice it and, with the patience and delicacy and love of a restorer, to clean it up from the black crust. And I would love being there at that moment, when its true colours would emerge dazzling.

Yet, I fear that time. The people then will crowd around it. The blind men will praise its colours. Someone will want to label it. Once again that painting will hide behind a black cloud. I wish it could be seen only by those who understand. Only by those dusty and forgotten paintings, because it is under the dust that lies the true virtue. It is under the black crusts that masterpieces lay.

And looking at that picture I understand now: I do not care to be a fake as long as I can still see beyond.


End file.
